Monday, September 10, 2012

Hero of the hour? Melinda Gates.She is smart, and well spoken; she is an incredible philanthropist, and an amazing feminist.
Recently, she announced that her foundation is donating $560 million to provide birth control to women in impoverished countries. This step has potential to improve the lives of families because, despite the Catholic Church's distinct distaste for birth control, the facts remain that access to birth control has almost immeasurable benefits for women, children and communities at large.
Gates foundation's push for the empowerment of women and betterment of the lives of the impoverished is reason enough to make her kick-ass. However, it is her polite but firm disinterest in the Church hissy fit that just makes me love Gates all the more.
Upon the announcements of her foundation's new move, conservative Catholics FREAKED out. They accused her of eugenics, of not being truly Catholic, of being "dangerous". And she took on this all-too-amazing "Mommy's working now. Go play somewhere else" attitude that makes me want to hug her. Without even breaking her polite smile, she just nods and remarks, "We're not going to agree on everything, and that's okay".
So great. So great!
Here's why:
The bishops and popes can holler all they want about the misuse of God's gift of sexuality or whatever, but the fact remains, the immorality of birth control is not just highly controversial within the church, it is not even official Church dogma. It's not in the Bible. It is not in the Catechism. Most Catholics are perfectly fine with birth control. Not to mention birth control HELPS PEOPLE. Clearly, this is just another issue that the modern Church leadership needs to get over. And Ms. Gates is so cool about it, she is all "You can go ahead and yell. I'll just be over here improving the world."
So cool.